Goal of bone-marrow drive: 'Help others'

LUNENBURG -- It seems only fitting that Carol Hatch works at the Sizer School in Fitchburg.

With a school motto of "Think. Care. Act," it certainly seems like that message is getting through to Sizer students. Look no further than Sunday's bone-marrow drive at the Pottery Paintin' Place in Lunenburg, which saw several students volunteering and others entering themselves into the national bone-marrow registry.

Hatch's own entry into the national database led to her donating stem cells to a California man in need a dozen years after contributing at a drive. It's a cause near and dear to her heart, so when Sizer junior Charlotte Ward needed an independent project for school and came up with the idea of a bone-marrow sample drive, Hatch didn't hesitate to jump onboard.

"I was supposed to be doing another project, but this kind of came up and (Hatch) was my inspiration for it," Ward said. "She came to me with the idea and, of course, I wanted to do it."

"So many people know about giving blood, but they don't know about this," Hatch said, referring to donating bone marrow. "I've been compelled to do it for so long, but life got busy. By asking Charlotte to team up with me, I knew I'd have to stay on track."

The drive allowed anyone 18 to 60 years old to donate saliva samples swabbed from their mouths for testing.

Advertisement

Each swab took less than five minutes, including the time needed to enter information into the national database.

More than a dozen people did so Sunday afternoon in a space donated by the Pottery Paintin' Place.

Hatch's sample came back as a match for a California man well over 10 years after she was tested. She was able to donate 500 million stem cells to the man, who was battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The two have since grown close despite never having met, and the man offered some advice for Sunday's drive.

"I got an email from him yesterday that wished me luck," Hatch said. "He told me, 'Even if you only get one person to come in, that's all it takes. It only takes one person to save a life.' And it's so fast and easy that we're hoping to get a lot more than one person."

The two will continue to collect swabs throughout the week if anyone wants to donate. Hatch asks that any interested people contact her at CZHatch@gmail.com.

"I'm glad I've been able to do this," Ward said. "It's a school project, but it's also a way to help others and maybe really help someone down the road."

Welcome to your discussion forum: Sign in with a Disqus account or your social networking account for your comment to be posted immediately, provided it meets the guidelines. (READ HOW.)
Comments made here are the sole responsibility of the person posting them; these comments do not reflect the opinion of The Sentinel and Enterprise. So keep it civil.